( 2 5 4 )
“What would you like me to do?” Ren asked cautiously.
“Give me permission to publish the completed commentary.”
Ren wasn’t as positive as I’d hoped he’d be. “That’s an expensive un -
dertaking,” he said.
“Which is why I’ll use my bride-price jewelry to pay for the printing,”
Yi responded. She folded back the pieces of silk to reveal her rings, neck-laces, earrings, and bangles.
“What will you do with those?” Ren asked.
“Take them to a pawnshop.”
It wasn’t proper for her to go to a place like that, but I’d be with her, guiding and protecting her.
Ren pinched his chin thoughtfully and then said, “It still won’t be enough money.”
“Then I’ll pawn my wedding gifts too.”
He tried to talk her out of such an undertaking. He tried to be a strict and forceful husband.
“I don’t want you or any of my wives to be labeled a fame-seeker,” Ren sputtered. “Female talent belongs in the inner chambers.”
Comments like these were not like him, but Yi and I remained unfazed.
“I don’t care if they call me a fame-seeker, because I’m not,” she countered easily. “I’m doing this for my sister-wives. Shouldn’t they be acknowledged?”
“But they never sought fame! Peony left nothing to suggest she wanted to have her words read by outsiders. And Ze absolutely didn’t want to be recognized.” He added, trying to compose himself, “She knew her place as a wife.”
“And how they must regret it now.”
Ren and Yi went back and forth. Yi listened to him patiently but didn’t shift from her position. She was so determined that he finally revealed his real concern.
“The commentary brought Peony and Ze to no-good ends. If something happened to you—”
“You worry too much about me. By now you must see that I’m stronger than I look.”
“But I do worry.”
I understood that and I was concerned for Yi too, but I needed this.
And so did Yi. In all the years I’d known her, she’d never asked for anything for herself.
( 2 5 5 )
“Please say yes, Husband.”
Ren took Yi’s hands and stared hard into her eyes. At last, he said, “I’ll say yes on two conditions: that you eat properly and get enough sleep. If you start to ail, you must give it up that instant.”
Yi agreed and immediately set to work, copying everything from the Shaoxi edition with Ze’s and Yi’s writing into a new volume of The Peony Pavilion to give to the woodblock printers. I insinuated myself into the ink and used my fingers as the hairs of her calligraphy brush as they flowed across the page.
we f i n i sh e d one evening at the beginning of winter. Yi invited Ren to join her in the Clouds Hall to celebrate. Even with a fire in the brazier, cold pervaded the room. Outside, bamboo snapped in the frozen air and a light sleet began to fall. Yi lit a candle and warmed wine. Then the two of them compared the new pages with the original. This was meticulous work, but I watched—awed and breathless—as Ren turned the pages, stopping here and there to read my words. Several times he smiled. Was he remembering our conversation in the Moon-Viewing Pavilion? More than once his eyes misted. Was he thinking about me alone in my bed, desperate with longing?
He took a breath, lifted his chin, and expanded his chest. His fingers rested on the last words I’d written as a living girl— When people are alive, they love. When they die, they keep loving—and he said to Yi, “I’m proud of you for completing this.” When his fingers caressed my words, I knew he’d finally heard me. Gratification at last. Euphoria, elation, ecstasy.
Looking at Ren and Yi, I saw they were as jubilant and blissful as I felt.
A few hours later, Yi said, “It must have started to snow.” She walked to the window. Ren picked up the new copy and joined her. Together they opened the window. Heavy snow cloaked the branches with sparkling powder that looked like pure white jade. Ren whooped, then grabbed his wife and ran with her outside into the flurries, where they danced and laughed and fell into the drifts. I joined in their laughter, pleased to see them so carefree.
Something made me turn just in time to see sparks fly from a candle and fall on the Shaoxi edition.
No! I flew across the room, but I was too late. The pages ignited.
Smoke billowed out of the room. Yi and Ren came running. He grabbed the wine jar and threw the contents on the fire, which only made things ( 2 5 6 )
worse. I was frantic, horrified. I didn’t know what to do. Yi grabbed a quilt and doused the flames.
The room went dark. Yi and Ren fell to the floor, panting from their exertions, crippled by dismay. Ren wrapped his arms around his sobbing wife. I sank down next to them and curled myself around Ren, needing his comfort and protection too. We stayed that way for several minutes.
Then slowly, tentatively, Ren felt around the room, found the candle, and lit it. The lacquered desk was badly charred. Wine flowed in every direction onto the floor. The air was heavy with the odors of alcohol, burnt goosedown, and smoke.
“Could it be that my two sister-wives don’t wish their writing to remain in the human world?” Yi asked, her voice shaking. “Did their spirits bring this about? Is there a demonic creature whose jealousy seeks to destroy this project?”
Husband and wife stared at each other in dismay. For the first time since their marriage, I retreated up to the rafters, where I hung on to a beam and shivered in misery and despair. I had allowed myself to hope, and now I was shattered.
Ren helped Yi to her feet and ushered her to a chair.
“Wait here,” he said, and went back outside.
He returned a moment later with something in his hands. I slipped back down from the rafters to see what it was. He held the new copy of the commentary that Yi had prepared for the printers.
“I dropped this when we saw the fire,” he said, showing it to Yi. She came to him and together we watched anxiously as he brushed the snow from the cover and opened it to make sure it hadn’t been damaged. Yi and I sighed in relief. It was fine.
“Perhaps this fire was a blessing and not a bad omen,” he said. “We lost Peony’s original writings in a fire long ago. And now the volume I bought for Ze has been destroyed. Don’t you see, Yi? Now all three of you will be together in only one book.” He took a breath, and added, “You have all worked so hard. Nothing will stop this from being published now. I’ll make sure of that.”
A hungry ghost’s tears of thanks mingled with those of her sister-wife.
The next morning, Yi ordered a servant to dig a hole under the plum tree. She gathered up the ashes and burnt fragments of the Shaoxi edition, wrapped them in raw silk damask, and buried them under the tree, where they joined with me and served as a reminder of what had happened and how carefully I— we—needed to proceed.
( 2 5 7 )
.
.
.
i th ou g h t i t would be a good idea for a few others to read what we’d written before it went out into the larger world. The readers I trusted most—and the only ones I knew—were in the Banana Garden Five. I left the compound, went down to the lake, and joined them for the first time in sixteen years. They were even more famous than when I’d clung to them during my exile. Their interest in the writings of other women had grown with their success. So it wasn’t hard for me to whisper in their ears about a woman who lived on Wushan Mountain who had a unique project she was hoping to publish, or that they would respond with enthusiasm and curiosity. A few days later, an invitation arrived for Yi to join the Banana Garden Five on one of its boating trips.